Zero Dark Thirty

It reviews better than it plays — admired more than it is enjoyed.

• “Bigelow delivers an acute realization of the mission's execution that's eerily in sync with the way it played in the popular imagination. Visually, the events unfold as a mashup of shadowy movements with flashes of green night vision. It's simultaneously predictable and tense.”

  Eric Kohn, IndieWire · 100

• “The film's power steadily and relentlessly builds over its long course, to a point that is terrifically imposing and unshakable.”

  Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter · 100

• “The word docudrama doesn't hint at Boal's achievement. This is movie journalism that snaps and stings, that purifies a decade's clamor and clutter into narrative clarity, with a salutary kick.”

  Richard Corliss, Time · 100

• “Telling a nearly three-hour story with an ending everyone knows, Bigelow and Boal have managed to craft one of the most intense and intellectually challenging films of the year.”

  Katey Rich, The Guardian · 100

• “Once in a long while, a fresh-from-the-headlines movie - like "All the President's Men" or "United 93" - fuses journalism, procedural high drama, and the oxygenated atmosphere of a thriller into a new version of history written with lightning. Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's meticulous and electrifying re-creation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is that kind of movie.”

  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly · 100